


Rhaegar's folly

by moonlitgleek



Series: ASOIAF Meta Collection [2]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Archived From Tumblr, Fanwork Research & Reference Guides, Meta Essasy, Nonfiction, archived from moonlitgleek blog
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-12
Updated: 2018-12-12
Packaged: 2019-09-17 04:16:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 14,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16967508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonlitgleek/pseuds/moonlitgleek





	1. When Rhaegar Fell

As much as he infuriates me, the character of Rhaegar Targaryen still holds a lot of appeal to me. I admit that it’s mostly a case of a weird fascination not unlike that we might have with a scene of an accident - a car crash that we passed on the road and are curious about its the circumstances; what happened and whose fault it was and if someone was hurt. Rhaegar is a car crash with a death toll of thousands, and that secure him a place in my thoughts as I try to figure out what he was truly like away from the contradictory opinions of those who idolize him and those who demonize him.

He has a unique place in the text - until his son came along, he was the only one with such strong connection to both the war for the dawn, and the game of thrones. He was the only person concerned with both magical and political war. Ideally that means that he was in a prime position to make a difference - he was the crown prince with all the power and influence that affords him and he was keenly aware that a war for the survival of the human race is coming. The problem is that Rhaegar - as Ser Barristan describes him- was single-minded. Indeed a look at the sequence of events show how Rhaegar could never balance his knowledge of the political climate of Westeros and what it needed with his knowledge of the importance of preparing for the upcoming war and his obsession with the PtwP. His concern and involvement with both the magical and political wars were never concurrent and it seems that he was never able to navigate one without completely losing sight of the other, something that led to his and his house’s ruin eventually.

* * *

Our knowledge of his life is divided into periods where he was primarily focused on the magical and others where he was focused on the political. First he found the prophecy and went out of his way to make sure he was ready for the responsibilities of a savior but he stopped believing that he was the prophesied savior at some point - Maester Aemon says that Rhaegar believed he was the PtwP when he was young, which means that it wasn’t a matter of transferring the title to Aegon once he was born but that Rhaegar’s dismissal of the idea that he was the PtwP preceded Aegon’s birth by a good while - and he started getting involved in politics around roughly the same time. He was a prominent figure in politics from the Defiance of Duskendale to the Tourney at Harrenhall where he was supposedly setting the stage for his father’s removal, only to halt everything and act as if he developed sudden tone-deafness to the political boiling pot that Westeros had become and fall off the face of the earth with Lyanna Stark.

This was a period of time when even his own friends couldn’t find him and where he completely ignored the ramifications of what he’d done to focus on the conception of the third head of the dragon, and yet when he was forced to return and face the rebellion, he left Lyanna deprived of proper medical care to ensure her and the baby’s survival. He was focused on the magical then the political then magical again then political again, but every single time, he became so engrossed in one that he willfully ignored the other completely.

The event that put Rhaegar on the road that eventually led to his death and the destruction of his house was his reading of the prophecy heralding the Prince that Was Promised. Until that moment, he was a bookish boy who had the respect of his maesters but he was never a warrior. He became one for the sole purpose of meeting the requirements of the prophecy whose subject had to be a capable warrior -- “It seems I must be a warrior”. As the crown prince of a house who had been plagued with war and rebellions more often than not throughout its history and in a culture that gives great accolades to warriors, being a warrior was arguably more of a political necessity for Rhaegar, or at the very least certainly expected of him yet it was only after reading the prophecy and linking it to the circumstances of his own birth that he made the effort.

(Interestingly this hints at a quality that Ser Barristan also attributed to Rhaegar - dutifulness. It is said that Rhaegar didn’t particularly enjoy being a warrior and never loved the song of swords. Whether Rhaegar’s decision to be a warrior was born out of a sense of responsibility and desire to shoulder the burden of saving the world, or out of going through a checklist that enables him to be the great hero with the grand destiny remains to be seen. What I’m more interested in is how that description firmly goes against the truth of Rhaegar’s actions from the tourney of Harrenhall onwards. But as I believe that there is a modicum of truth in Ser Barristan’s words, I wonder if Rhaegar saw it that he had a duty to produce the three heads of the dragon. This relates to another part of the discussion that I’ll bring up later.)

Next comes a period where there is a severe lack of info wrt the prophecy and Rhaegar’s connection to it, the only thing we know is that Rhaegar stopped believing that he was the prophesied prince and instead bestowed the title on newborn Aegon. When exactly Rhaegar decided he was the Prince and why remains unknown but I reckon that it happened reasonably before his marriage to Elia, hence Maester Aemon’s comment. My tentative theory is that Rhaegar might have gotten disillusioned with the whole prophecy for a time when the third head of the dragon failed to emerge and no dragons woke from stone. If he matched the circumstances of his birth in the tragedy of Summerhall with the signs heralding the birth of the PtwP, and if we take his belief that the three heads of the dragon refer to three siblings as shown with his own kids into consideration, it stands to reason that Rhaegar thought that his own siblings were the two remaining heads, only his mother’s pregnancies ended in stillbirths, miscarriages and infant death till Viserys was born after Rhaegar had reached his majority and there was no child after that.

This is pure speculation on my part, one that can easily be dismissed. But I’ve always wondered why Rhaegar was in such a haste to acquire his third child when Aegon - who he believed was the PtwP- was only a few months old, meaning that the War for the Dawn wasn’t going to happen anytime soon. Rhaegar was in the middle of a political scheme aiming to overthrow his father, a dangerous move indeed considering he was already the target of his father’s paranoia and distrust. He was firmly focused on politics and the crown when he attended the tourney of Harrenhall. The tourney itself was a political maneuver that Aerys foiled with his presence. Then Rhaegar returned to Dragonstone where Aegon was born and a few months later he was disappearing with Lyanna and handwaving the political ramifications of such a move and his prior plans to overthrow his father away. What changed and why was he in such a hurry?

Exactly two things happened between arranging the tourney of Harrenhall with its political aim and subtext, and Rhaegar taking a sharp detour and basically going: “Politics? What politics?” that might explain Rhaegar’s sudden change of focus and disregard of basic common sense. Those two things are Rhaegar meeting Lyanna Stark in the aftermath of the Knight of the Laughing Tree and Aegon Targaryen’s birth.

Now I happen to be one of the people who believe that Rhaegar might have feelings for Lyanna, though intrigue or admiration are the words I’d use so I really don’t think it’s the romanticized story of Rhaegar falling head over heels for Lyanna and just being unable to be apart from her that he just up and disappeared with her for months, consequences be damned. That’s not the story here. Meaning that the variable that affected Rhaegar’s decision to brush off his efforts and prior plans was most probably Aegon’s birth which brought with it the knowledge that Elia should not bear more children.

So, imagine if you will someone who spends years invested in a prophecy about a savior of mankind believing it was him and dedicated to doing what is required for the fulfillment of the prophecy (see my point about dutifulness above), probably feeling a disappointment after another with every stillbirth and infant death among his siblings till he washes his hand off it altogether and focus on his obvious duty as the crown prince but surely it never truly leaves his mind after years of obsession and investment. He then gets a son, heralded with a bleeding star and born amidst salt and smoke with a sibling to serve as the second head of the dragon but he gets told that another sibling is infeasible for it would kill his wife. But he is close, so close to fulfilling the prophecy and getting the third head and he will stop at nothing to get it. It’s his line that would produce the PtwP, not the Martells. There’s nothing to say that the three heads must have the same mother, and Lyanna Stark is of the North. Rhaenys has a Dornish mother who has Targaryen ancestry herself. She is fire. Visenya would have a mother of the North so she could be ice, and together they’d be the PtwP’s song of ice and fire, or so Rhaegar might have figured.

It could explain why he was falling over himself in his haste to make off with Lyanna, couldn’t it? Desperation to fulfill the prophecy that was almost lost to him when his belief was invigorated with Aegon’s birth. He wasn’t going to wait and face another disappointment when he was so close to having all three heads of the dragon. I’m not married to the idea that he made the connection between Lyanna, ice and the PtwP’s song but his single-mindedness triggered by Aegon’s birth and his desperation to fulfill the prophecy he spent years invested in sure explain his sudden political stupidity.

And thus started Rhaegar’s folly. His fall from grace in every sense of the word. From a lauded and celebrated prince believed to be capable of being a great king to an ignorant and tone-deaf individual disregarding the consequences of his actions. He started his story believing he was the savior of the realm only to be one of the main reasons the realm was torn apart.

I’ve always wondered if he ever found out that his parents were married for that same prophecy he was so obsessed with and that it was the reason Jaehaerys II disregarded Rhaella’s age and married her off so young which led to all her health issues and child-bearing troubles. If that had any influence on his decision to disregard Elia, the Starks, Robert Baratheon and even Lyanna’s age and the reality of how informed her consent to leave with him was. The idea makes me shudder but Rhaegar grew up in an abusive household with an insane and violent father and a mother who was “always mindful of her duty”. If he did find out the truth about how the prophecy was the bane of his mother’s existence and the reason for her suffering, could it be that a young Rhaegar rationalized the whole thing by thinking that it was a necessary sacrifice for the sake of saving the realm so that he could find any point of his mother’s suffering, any “positive” spin on the horror show of his parents’ marriage? Could he have internalized that the prophecy takes precedence regardless of whatever price has to be paid for it? Or, on the flip side of that, could it be that he was so obsessed with the prophecy so that he might cling to the idea that Rhaella’s suffering meant something and that it wasn’t in vain so to speak?

I’m not sure I want to know the answer to any of those questions tbh and I don’t think we’d ever get them. And while I don’t think it excuses how he behaved and the choices he made _at all_ , it’s something to mull over since I’m always trying to understand why he behaved in the way he did.

**Lyanna and consent issues:**

I’m not going to waste my breath talking about all the alternative ways Rhaegar could have handled things and still won Lyanna’s hand without spiriting her away, if he was so deadset on her being the mother of his third child. Lots of people have already talked about it more eloquently than I could. It’s the implications of his choices, what they mean for Lyanna’s consent and the boundaries of said consent that interest me here. Lyanna might have agreed to run away with Rhaegar but the fact that she probably did not know the exact situation she was consenting to - that she was mainly means for Rhaegar to get his third child and that he was willing to let everything burn in his wake for it - makes this very very murky. Then Rhaegar makes a series of choices starting from this point that raise so many consent issues.

He pretty much fell off the face of the earth with Lyanna and his kingsguard for months, not even his own friends could locate him till he surfaced after everything went to hell and the rebellion was well underway. What’s often disregarded in discussion is how vulnerable such a situation made Lyanna. Rhaegar carried her off to Dorne - literally the farthest point from the North he could possible get to without leaving Westeros all together. This effectively isolated Lyanna from everyone she knew and made it that her only connection to the outside world are Rhaegar and his kingsguard. Rhaegar was the one controlling where she went, what information she got and who she had contact with. Any control she had was dependent on him allowing it. Picking Dorne as their hideout also put Lyanna smack dab in the middle of hostile territory since her very presence with Rhaegar at the tower of joy was an insult to Elia and Dorne. The whole situation made Lyanna powerless and completely dependent on Rhaegar. Even if she ever wanted to leave (and I believe she did want to at one point), she was in no position to force it if he refused. Maybe Rhaegar didn’t intend to isolate her so when he picked Dorne, maybe his intention wasn’t to make her so vulnerable, but that doesn’t change that fact that this was exactly the position he put her in.

Next comes the ugliest part of this - Rickard and Brandon Stark’s murders and when Rhaegar deigned to share that part with her. We have no way of knowing the extent of Lyanna’s knowledge of the rebellion and when she found out any of it, for Rhaegar had the power to withhold as much information as he wished from her. She clearly knew about it by the time Ned arrived since she was screaming his name but that doesn’t necessarily mean that she found out right away about her father and brother’s deaths. She could have only found out when Rhaegar had to leave or even after he had died.

Rhaegar’s reaction to the rebellion once he returned could indicate just that. He came back after months to a rebellion his reckless actions were one of the reasons of- and instead of suing for peace and trying to appease the rebels, one of whom is Lyanna’s own brother, he just merrily rode to fight for a crown. No way headstrong free-spirited Lyanna found out about what happened and just left him to go fight a war against her brother -- a war where she’d lose either way regardless of the victor. Given her personality, there is no way she was okay with continuing to play the part of the princess in the tower when half of her family was slaughtered and the other half was at war with her child’s father. Pregnant or not, Lyanna Stark would have wanted to get involved and to try to put a stop to the war. 

All scenarios are bad. Either Rhaegar withheld information from her and thus took the choice out of her hands, or he did tell her what happened and then proceeded to prevent her from leaving\getting involved, or at the very least, completely ignored her wishes for peace and perhaps a missive to Ned. Regardless of which scenario is more accurate, or even if there’s a third one I haven’t considered, fact remains that Rhaegar chose to fight for his damn crown and disregarded Lyanna’s position in all this and the fact that this war means she’d lose someone either way.

Moreover, it was Rhaegar’s choice of war that ultimately meant that Lyanna was left stranded in that tower and gave birth alone. This is yet again a sign of his single-mindedness, that once his focus shifted to the political war, he just dropped the ball on Lyanna and the baby and their connection to the magical war. For someone who was in such a haste to have his third head of the dragon, you’d think that he’d take every precaution to ensure that Lyanna was looked after and able to deliver a healthy baby. Rhaegar lived through the string of miscarriages, stillbirths and cradle deaths his mother suffered and that was while she had a grand maester and an army of maesters to attend her. Elia almost died birthing Aegon despite also receiving top notch care. How is it that he thought Lyanna’s situation was ideal in any way? It’s all utterly fucked up. Lyanna had to give birth without any sufficient help which could have led to her demise. The Kingsguard were obviously going to prioritize Rhaegar’s orders over Lyanna’s wishes considering that she was screaming for Ned and yet he had to fight his way to her side. The whole thing reeks of severe consent issues.

The most frustrating thing is that all of that could have been avoided, even after Rickard and Brandon’s murders. Rhaegar could have produced Lyanna whose safety and pregnancy would have made a difference and at the very least brought Ned to the negotiating table. Jon Arryn and Hoster Tully would have followed, and Robert alone wouldn’t have been able to stop their peace. A Great Council and Aerys’ removal and imprisonment would have gone a long way in calming the North and the Vale somewhat. Rhaegar could have tried to reach a compromise with the Faith to accept him taking Lyanna as a second wife and recognize Jon as a legitimate Targaryen. Dorne would have been difficult to appease but they wouldn’t have started a war over it, and if Rhaegar, by some miracle, managed to win Elia over, she’d have held her brothers at bay.

But no, Rhaegar chose the stupidest and most arrogant and inconsiderate road and decided it was the best one. He talked about making changes but only _after_ the war was won- after killing Robert, potentially killing Ned, after regaining all the power, ending the rebellion and punishing those who rose against injustice. Rhaegar was ready for change but only one he dictated the terms of as the victor. But the thing is that this whole mess started because he abused his power even before Aerys did, and he continued to do so with Lyanna while the entire continent caught fire. That legacy even continued posthumously through his orders to the Kingsguard that made them keep Ned from Lyanna, which was also an abuse of power. Rhaegar did not want to pay any price for what he has done or make any compromises to make up for his and his father’s actions or to satisfy the rebels’ need for justice. He did _not deserve_ to dictate the terms of anything.

Call it single-mindedness, call it arrogance, call it selfishness or failure to see beyond his own wants, doesn’t really matter. Rhaegar lay dead in the stream and his folly wrote the end in blood- his, his wife’s, his children’s, even Lyanna and Rhaella.


	2. Arguing Rhaegar's responsibility

[inkykate](http://inkykate.tumblr.com/post/149774860893) reblogged [this post ](http://moonlitgleek.tumblr.com/post/149756091815/when-rhaegar-fell)and said: 

> I hate that I’m a Rhaegar apologist, but, since this laid it all out there, I can’t help adding my two cents.
> 
> I don’t think Rhaegar’s decision to “run away” with Lyanna was him abandoning the political narrative; I think it was the culmination of it.
> 
> As the adult Crown Prince, Rhaegar had a significant amount of influence, but his power would always be trumped by his father’s. He did not get to chose who he married. Aerys did. And Aerys chose frustrating Tywin’s ambitions over making a good match for his only adult child. (And remember Viserys was only two or three when Rhaegar married; there was probably little hope that he would make it into adulthood.)
> 
> For all her personal virtues, Elia Martell was not a good match. Dorne is culturally and geographically isolated from the rest of Westeros. Her brothers did not make matches that strengthened their families ties in a substantial way to any of the other great houses. Doran married a woman from Essos. Oberyn already had three (bastard) daughters by the time Rhaegar and Elia were betrothed, making it highly unlikely that as a second son with his reputation he would ever make a good match. And, as Aerys would demonstrate in his distaste for his first grandchild’s appearance, there is definitely some ethnic prejudice towards the Dornish in Westeros.
> 
> Rhaegar marrying Elia gained the crown a firm alliance with only one of the seven kingdoms.
> 
> Now the hold of the Targaryen dynasty has been failing since the last dragon died. To start, there were very few Targaryens left. Aerys in his madness was fermenting the discord that already existed in the realm. And men always want more power. After all, if the Targaryens were now just men, then only the loyalties of other houses of the realm could keep another Great House from taking the throne. And I think it’s highly likely that Rhaegar realized he was standing on a political land mine.
> 
> Even if the meeting at Harrenhal had been able to proceed as planned, Rhaegar would have had to believe completely in the loyalty of those men to betray his father - and not to use the chaos to usurp his own claim. And, since Aerys was alerted to the possibility of a revolt, then it’s unlikely he would have had any of that confidence to proceed when the meetings fell apart. Worse for Rhaegar still - the tourney at Harrenhal likely put into even sharper focus how mad his father was perceived to be, how mad his father was, and how fractured the realm he hoped to rule was.
> 
> I don’t think Rhaegar would have left the tourney feeling as though not doing something was an option, but I think he would have realized that the chance of the realm not falling into war were slim. Then Aegon is born and Elia can no longer bear children.
> 
> This changes his perspective. Beyond “the dragon must have three heads,” there was no guarantee that Aegon would survive infancy, or that an accident wouldn’t take either of his children. Where his own mother had miscarried and lost babes again and again, there was always the possibility that he would one day have a living sibling. Worse, once Aerys learned of her barrenness, Elia’s position at court could become uncertain - while she had been used to insult Tywin, Aerys certainly had no affection for Elia after. It would not be outside the realm of possibility that Aerys would insist that Rhaegar take another wife or a mistress to produce more potential heirs. And, if Aerys knew, he would thus be involved in the process - and there would be no guarantee that the women he would put forth wouldn’t seek to advance their own standing and their own children by conspiring against Elia. (There’s also the chance Aerys might make that leap to mistress or second wife himself.)
> 
> So: 1) Alliances for a common cause (usurping a mad King) are off the table. 2) The crown needed allies to hold the realm together. 3) Elia’s barrenness would eventually be known. 4) Viserys and Rhaegar’s children are too young for marriage alliances to be effective. And thus, 5) if Rhaegar would need to make another marriage alliance, he would need to chose for himself.
> 
> And Lyanna’s the best choice for a second wife. Their connection at Harrenhal aside, the Stark’s are an old house and wardens of the largest territory in Westeros. Geographically, this would put allies for House Targaryen on each end of the kingdom. Better still, Lyanna has three brothers - one who is engaged to the eldest daughter of House Tully and the other who fostered with Lord Baratheon at the Vale with House Arryn. Essentially, the same alliances that ended Targaryen rule could have been used to hold it together. And what Rhaegar would have known of Lyanna’s character, if he did come to know her as the Knight of the Laughing Tree, would have reassured him that she wouldn’t be likely to conspire against Elia and her children.
> 
> It’s worth noting that Lyanna’s ‘abduction’ did not lead to any Houses revolting. Instead it was the deaths of Brandon Stark, who was on the way to his wedding to Catelyn Tully when he veered off to King’s Landing to call Rhaegar out, and Rickard Stark, who either remained at Winterfell or rode on to Riverrun following Lyanna’s abduction, that preceded the rebellion. And it was King Aerys calling for Ned’s (who had remained in the Vale) and Robert’s heads that led to Jon Arryn condoning the calling of banners. In short, it was when Aerys unjustly calling for an end of one of the great houses that caused the war.
> 
> Now, if this was the path that Rhaegar took, he misjudged three things: 1) Brandon’s location and what that would mean for his ability to reign in his temper, 2) the influence of the Small Council on Aerys to minimize any of his reactions, and 3) Robert’s feelings for himself* and Lyanna, in spite of the fact that he was going around fathering bastards.
> 
> (*I don’t think this gets examined enough. Robert is Rhaegar’s second cousin. Robert’s parents died looking for a wife for Rhaegar in Essos. And so forth.)
> 
> I also don’t think that Rhaegar could sue for peace once the war started. He needed to be winning if there was any hope for a Targaryen dynasty after the war. And I also think that it’s very possible that Lyanna was bedridden through much of her pregnancy - because she was in danger of miscarrying from either a shock or illness. Because their child, the embodiment of joining their houses, could have brought stability and peace to the realm had it all gone more to plan.

Hi! I really appreciate the political outlook of Rhaegar’s marriage to Elia but there’s also a lot I disagree with here. Allow me to condense this into main points for clarity’s sake and so I don’t end up arguing the same point at different intervals. God knows this is long enough as it is. **  
**

* * *

 

> **Rhaegar’s decision to “run away” with Lyanna was the culmination of the political narrative. He was motivated by his desire to make alliances with other Great Houses and feared usurpation. And since his children were young, he was the only one left and Lyanna was the best choice in a second wife.  
> **

There is quite a lot in the text that goes against that:

1\. I’ll start by the most obvious part - if Rhaegar’s goal is to secure an alliance with the Starks with the ties they have to the Tullys, Arryns and Baratheons so that he could count on their support against his father or during a Great Council, then the way he goes about it defeats the purpose. Disappearing with the daughter of the Warden of the North who is also betrothed to the Lord Paramount of the Stormlands is really not the best way to go when you’re trying to win those Houses to your side. You don’t make alliances by insulting those you want as allies and tarnishing their honor. Rhaegar’s stunt with Lyana effectively alienates both the North and the Stormlands - and with them the Riverlands and the Vale - even before Brandon Stark rides to King’s Landing.

2\. It’s true that Rhaegar needs alliances with other houses but marriage isn’t the only way for that, and Aerys’ presence at the Tourney at Harrenhal is enough of an incentive for the lords to _want_ to ally with Rhaegar. That tourney alone could have brought Rhaegar a lot of support if not for his actions with Lyanna. Rhaegar should have capitalized on the lords’ horror at the state of their king and presented himself as a vision of a better, saner and more capable king. He should have courted the Great Houses and tried to create alliances, whether by betrothals, promising prominent positions in his court, offering to foster their sons or take them as squires for him or his Kingsguard, all of which are great honors and sure ways to foster friendships and alliances that could grow into more. Look at Ned and Robert, or Loras and Renly.

Instead, he deals a grave insult to two Great Houses that have strong ties with two others. Because _that_ is a brilliant way to get them to support his claim and never think to overthrow him alongside his father. Nope, not at all. And like, at the time of Harrenhal, and before he crowns Lyanna, Rhaegar doesn’t have a reason to fear that another Great House plans to usurp him. I know there is a theory that the Southern Ambitions Coalition wanted to put Robert on the throne but there is no evidence whatsoever of that, and precedents of Targaryen succession make it a futile plan. Their alliance was to give them greater power in any future Great Council (and they all surely knew that one was getting called sooner or later) and ensure they’d have positions and influence in court, all of which would be doable with Rhaegar on the throne because he desperately needed them.

3\. In a feudal society like Westeros, political matches designed to create alliances in times of unrest such as the one of Aerys’ reign almost always disregard age in favor of creating alliances. It simply ceases to be a factor, overshadowed by the need for military and political support. Sometimes political matches for the purpose of securing an alliance in trying times are no more than a promise of a betrothal with no set brides\grooms (Hello Pact of Ice and Fire). Moreover, the text gives us examples of several children who are offered in betrothals and even married when they are no more than babes. Tywin Lannister offers baby Tyrion to the Princess of Dorne as a match for Elia after he rejects her match with Jaime. Visenya Targaryen wanted to betroth her son Maegor to his newborn niece. Ermesande Hayford is still a suckling babe and she was married off to Tyrek Lannister for her lands. Rhaena Targaryen was betrothed to Prince Lucerys Velaryon when she was two. So Rhaegar definitely could negotiate betrothals for his children, young as they are. No family would refuse a match with the royal family for something as “insignificant” as age. 

4\. So let’s talk betrothals. Rhaenys could have brought the Southern Ambitions bloc to Rhaegar’s side through a betrothal to Edmure Tully (or Renly Baratheon but Edmure is definitely the best choice being the heir to the Riverlands so he is more suited for the daughter of the crown prince and a princess of Dorne, where Renly is a third son with no lands and no inheritance.) Honestly, a betrothal like that, in and of itself, would have been enough to grant Rhaegar enough support to take on his father. He could afford to wait to betroth Aegon (as of yet unborn at the time of Harrenhal) as the potential brides of Great Houses at the time of his birth were somewhat limited. Cersei was 15 years older and Margaery was yet to be born.

4\. But I’ll allow that Rhaegar did not want to betroth his children that young (also probably wanted to wed them to one another like the conqueror and the first Rhaenys) and somehow thought that taking a second wife was his only alternative, even though taking a second wife would be a political hardship for it slights Elia and Dorne, not to mention it needs the Faith’s approval. You know who would make a great match for Rhaegar himself that guarantees him the support of the Southern Ambitions bloc without angering the very same people he supposedly wants on his side? Lysa Tully. Marrying into the Tullys still brings in the Starks and the Arryns without running the risk of losing the Baratheons that choosing Lyanna brings. Lysa is such a great match that even Tywin Lannister wanted her for Jaime before he became a Kingsguard. Between Lysa and Lyanna, Lysa is definitely the better political choice. Lyanna is a political nightmare as a choice of a wife.

So I really don’t see how Rhaegar can be thought to be attempting to create alliances when his actions destroys his bridges with the Starks and the Baratheons and sent the realm propelling into chaos. No one sane would think that disappearing with the daughter of one of the Great Houses with the blatant disrespect such an action speaks of could culminate in them lending him their support. Rhaegar’s own actions invalidate that idea.

> **It would not be outside the realm of possibility that Aerys would insist that Rhaegar take another wife or a mistress to produce more potential heirs. And, if Aerys knew, he would thus be involved in the process - and there would be no guarantee that the women he would put forth wouldn’t seek to advance their own standing and their own children by conspiring against Elia. (There’s also the chance Aerys might make that leap to mistress or second wife himself.)**

Having children for dynastic reasons means that the children need to be legitimate and for that to happen, _the Faith_ must recognize the validity of a marriage to Lyanna. Rhaegar’s actions accomplishes the complete opposite. Not only do we have zero indication that he makes any effort to win the Faith over, the very act of disappearing with Lyanna for months casts a huge shadow on the legitimacy of any children they have, if it doesn’t destroy it completely, which completely nukes the idea that he is seeking _heirs_ and invalidates any reasoning that he is politically-driven. The shadow of the last legitimized Targaryen bastards hasn’t left Westeros and the conflict and unrest the Blackfyres brought to the realm is still very much remembered. The realm just _loves_ Targaryen bastards.

Additionally, I don’t think Rhaegar thought he is in any danger of Aerys forcing him to set Elia aside and take a second wife for child-bearing purposes. (and I honestly don’t think he thinks much of Elia at all. I’m having trouble seeing him oh-so-concerned about how another wife could conspire against Elia after what he does to her.) I suspect that choosing Elia for Rhaegar’s bride in the first place was Aerys’ attempt to limit Rhaegar’s influence in court. Aerys’s paranoia and distrust of Rhaegar had already started by the time he is betrothed to Elia, and he purposely chose a match that simultaneously suits the prestige of the royal family - Elia being a princess with Targaryen ancestry- but doesn’t give Rhaegar much of an advantage politically\militarily and that is sure to stir the lords’ prejudices and racism, since Dorne is looked down upon across the realm and the Dornish are heavily stigmatized. So I think that his choice of Elia in the first place was actually an attempt to limit Rhaegar’s power and influence in court, and to bring him down in the eyes of the lords of the realm as well. The breakdown you did of the relatively limited political advantages of Rhaegar’s marriage to Elia suggests that. 

So I think that Aerys would be glad that Elia could no longer have children as more heirs would strengthen Rhaegar’s position in court and give him an advantage over Aerys, possibly making him a more appealing choice to the lords of the realm. 

There is also very little possibility that Aerys would take another wife at this point, simply because he is too paranoid to let anyone near his person easily after the Defiance of Duskendale, to the point where he couldn’t abide his own servants touching him and instead preferred to go unkempt with talon-like nails and long matted hair. And while he does not care about Rhaegar and what threat a second wife could pose to his claim, another wife would certainly be a threat to _Viserys_ whose safety is paramount to Aerys. The guy even feared that Viserys’ wet nurse would smear poison on her nipples to kill him, no way was he going to have children by another wife who could do something to Viserys.

We also can’t rule out the possibility that Aerys felt emasculated by Rhaegar as Aerys himself couldn’t produce more than two heirs in over 20 years. Remember that he declars that none of Rhaella’s miscarriages or dead babies are his and were the result of her having an affair. Surely his seed couldn’t produce such feeble children so it has to be a punishment from the gods for Rhaella’s indiscretions. And then there is Rhaegar who is quite fertile. He has two healthy children back to back in the span of two years of marriage, even with Elia’s frail health and her being bedridden for months after Rhaenys’ birth. No, I think Aerys would be glad to hear that Rhaegar could no longer have children and wouldn’t try to change it in any way.

> **It’s worth noting that Lyanna’s ‘abduction’ did not lead to any Houses revolting. Instead it was the deaths of Brandon Stark[..] and Rickard Stark [...] that preceded the rebellion. And it was King Aerys calling for Ned’s [..] and Robert’s heads that led to Jon Arryn condoning the calling of banners. In short, it was when Aerys unjustly calling for an end of one of the great houses that caused the war.**

True and Aerys bears the full responsibility of that. But Rhaegar still plays a part and can not be absolved of blame. It is him who sets the Starks on a collision course with Aerys and I can not claim that his hands are completely clean of their blood. Rhaegar endangers the Stark starting from the tourney of Harrenhal when his crowning of Lyanna as Queen of Love and Beauty drew Aerys’ eyes and suspicion to them, and that prior suspicion surely plays a part in Rickard and Brandon’s fates since Aerys was already convinced that they are plotting against him. Moreover, Rhaegar disappears. I repeat, he _disappears_. For _months_. Not even one of his closest friends could locate him. He creates a very precarious situation that could easily turn into a political crisis - one he knows his father could not (and would not) handle without bloodshed and brutality- then he washes his hands off the whole situation and lets everyone else bear the consequences of his actions. Rhaegar most definitely is responsible for that. The main event that led to Brandon Stark riding to King’s Landing is of _his_ creation. The fact that things escalates so badly is aided by his disappearance and his inaction. 

Rhaegar throws a lit match on a gasoline-soaked kindling and there’s no way to claim that he doesn’t bear part of the responsibility of what transpires afterwards. He doesn’t lift a finger to try and minimize the damage of the political disaster that he is at the heart of. Rhaegar does nothing, and that’s exactly the problem. He knows how volatile and unpredictable his father is. He knows what Aerys os capable of and how he responds to any perceived threat or any voice of dissent. He has seen what his father did to the Darklyns after the Defiance of Duskendale. He knows that Aerys is using wildfire in his executions and taking pleasure in it, and that he doesn’t take confrontation or opposition well.

And what does Rhaegar do? He effectively forces the Starks into a confrontation with his batshit crazy father. Brandon Stark’s actions are reckless and brash and downright stupid, but the Starks would have clashed with Aerys even if Brandon never rode to King’s Landing the way he did. Because Rhaegar’s disappearance means they have no one to go to to demand Lyanna’s return, no one to answer for Lyanna’s “abduction”. Their only way to find Rhaegar and Lyanna is Aerys. Rhaegar puts the Starks in a situation where they _have_ to go to Aerys for their daughter’s sake, and even without Brandon’s actions, that still wouldn’t have ended well since 1) Aerys is already suspicious of them, 2) he definitely isn’t going to placate them or deal with their grievance accordingly and 3) he deals with any perceived threat by setting it on fire.

So how can I divorce Rhaegar from all responsibility when he is the one who set the stage for the tragedy to unfold?

> **Rhaegar misjudged three things: 1) Brandon’s location and what that would mean for his ability to reign in his temper, 2) the influence of the Small Council on Aerys to minimize any of his reactions, and 3) Robert’s feelings for himself and Lyanna, in spite of the fact that he was going around fathering bastards.**

1\. How on earth can Rhaegar not know where Brandon is? What the hell was Lyanna doing in the Riverlands then? Lyanna is _right there_ with Rhaegar, and she definitely knows where her brother is.

2\. I’m gonna set the prophecy aside for now.... though Dany’s vision at the House of the Undying and Maester Aemon’s recollection of Rhaegar’s letters prove that it is very much on his mind at the time, but I’ll do it for the sake of being thorough. Let’s say that Rhaegar is adamant that his new bride is to be Lyanna after he fell for her at the tourney of Harrenhal or whatever. Choosing this way of disappearing with her instead of, oh I don’t know, courting the Starks with the appeal of their daughter being queen and finding some way to mollify Robert by finding him a desirable beautiful bride or offering a political advantage like a seat on his future small council or something, speaks of unbelievable political blindness. 

3\. I strongly disagree with the idea that Rhaegar makes a miscalculation. What he does is ignore some hard facts that are staring him in the face for the heck of it:

  * The aforementioned grave insult to the Starks and the fact that they would seek definitely him and their daughter out, and how his disappearance leaves them with no other choice but to go to Aerys.


  * Brandon Stark had to be restrained from confronting Rhaegar over the slight to Lyanna’s honor during the tourney of Harrenhal when Rhaegar was surrounded by a ton of loyal lords and his Kingsguard. Brandon’s recklessness and temper are made very clear that day and that was over a tourney crowning. How exactly does Rhaegar not expect him to be just as tempestuous and impulsive when his sister just vanished off the face of the earth?


  * Robert Baratheon’s great grandfather started a damn rebellion over a broken betrothal and Aegon V’s attempt to mollify the angry lord by making a marital concession was the reason Robert has Targaryen blood in the first place. While Rhaegar has no way of knowing how strongly Robert feels about his fantasy!Lyanna, he has every reason to deduce that a famously tempestuous Robert would react Very Badly. As you said, Robert is his second cousin and his attempts to appear unbothered by what happened at Harrenhal were painfully transparent.


  * Put two tempestuous and insulted young men in the same pot as a paranoid mad king and you have an excellent recipe for a disaster. If Rhaegar couldn’t recognize that, then he is an idiot. I’m sorry but he can not claim ignorance of all that.



4\. No way is Rhaegar under any illusion that the small council could stop Aerys from doing whatever the hell he wants. The small council after Tywin’s resignation is made of flatterers and supporters of Aerys. The Hand Owen Merryweather is a known suck up. Qarlton Chelsted, Lucerys Velaryon and Symond Staunton are all supporters of Aerys against Rhaegar. Wisdom Rossart the pyromancer has Aerys’ favor, while Varys and Grand Maester Pycelle rounds up the small council. What calming influence does Rhaegar expect from any of these people? And since when does the small council or the Hand or whoever manage to stop Aerys from doing something he sets his mind to? Even Tywin Lannister threw in the towel.

> **I also don’t think that Rhaegar could sue for peace once the war started. He needed to be winning if there was any hope for a Targaryen dynasty after the war.  
> **

I disagree.

War just brings unnecessary risks with it. It puts Rhaegar in the same boat as his father since he is fighting in Aerys’ name and to protect his crown. It means that he condones and validates what Aerys has done. It means he is defending his father’s decision to abuse his authority and breach the law however he sees fit. It implies he agrees with Rickard and Brandon Stark’s (and their entourages’) execution and the order for Eddard Stark and Robert Baratheon’s executions. Declaring for Aerys means that even if Rhaegar wins, he’d have a fractured unstable kingdom that isn’t going to forget his part in setting the realm on fire (with two kingdoms that aren’t about to forget the murder of the Lord Paramount and the heir of one, and the heir of the other. Both the Starks and the Arryns are loved among their vassals, meaning that Rhaegar would earn the lasting hostility of both regions. And the North _remembers_.) or condoning the injustice of his father and dealing a mortal hit to the social structure of their society. But if he loses? If he loses, his family is toast.

And losing was a possibility. Four pissed off kingdoms were in open rebellion with the Westerlands and the Iron Islands playing Switzerland, and the Westerlands were more prone to take the rebels’ side (which they did. Tywin was already on the move to King’s Landing _before_ Rhaegar died on the Trident.) The crown’s support came from the Reach, the Crownlands and Dorne. The Reach boasts the largest army in the realm so it’s nothing to be dismissive of, but the royalists suffered one defeat after another. Their only win was the Battle of Ashford (later marked by Tyrion Lannister as indecisive, take from that what you will). The Reach was avoiding bloodying itself since a good number of their forces was tied up feasting outside Storm’s End with Mace Tyrell. The smallfolk were also with the rebels since it was them who hid an injured Robert from Jon Connington till Ned’s and Hoster Tully’s forces arrived for the Battle of the Bells. The Targaryens were in a bad position, politically if not necessarily militarily. The realm hasn’t been that fractured and split since the Dance of Dragons. Everyone hated Aerys and the royalists were fighting in Aerys’ name and to defend his throne. 

Rhaegar had a gold chance to show that he is different from his father and that he is the kind of person to put the realm above his own crown, a chance to win the rebelling lords to _his_ side. Ironically, the fact that he hadn’t gotten involved in the war thus far could have served him well since he wasn’t directly involved in the execution of Brandon and Rickard Stark and their companions. Technically, the Great Houses rebelled against _Aerys_ and his breakage of the feudal contract and disregard of due process. Taking Lyanna is indeed a grave insult but one that could be rectified and made up for peacefully. Suing for peace would have shown the lords that Rhaegar is _worthy_ of the throne and that he isn’t going to be like his father, arrogant and brutal and ready to paint the realm red and eradicate houses just to keep a crown. It would have distanced him from the blame of indirectly starting the war or at the very least, made up for it somewhat.

Rhaegar also had an ace up his sleeve: Lyanna and her baby.

It was at least worth a try, wasn’t it? What could Rhaegar have possibly lost if he tried to sue for peace? If it had failed, he still could have ridden to battle. 

> **it’s very possible that Lyanna was bedridden through much of her pregnancy - because she was in danger of miscarrying from either a shock or illness. Because their child, the embodiment of joining their houses, could have brought stability and peace to the realm had it all gone more to plan.  
> **

That’s definitely possible but there are other ways for her to help change the course of the war if he so desires. Maybe Rhaegar couldn’t bring Lyanna physically back as a sign of good faith but he could have easily sent someone trustworthy and of renowned honor (like Ser Arthur Dayne maybe?) under a peace banner with a message from Lyanna to Ned.

As for how that pertains to whether Lyanna was kept against her will at the end or not, I’ll remind you that the Kingsguard were fighting to prevent Ned from getting to her. If it was simply a matter of Lyanna not being physically able to leave, they wouldn’t have ignored Lyanna’s wishes and would have let Ned through.


	3. Arguing Rhaegar's responsibility 2

[@honeybubblepop](https://tmblr.co/medNUatHCH7wSMjd_SF-z3Q) reblogged [your post](http://moonlitgleek.tumblr.com/post/156725563095/destroy-the-idea-that-robert-would-have-been-a) and added:

> Ok fact Rhaegar was NOT fighting for his father at all at the trident he fought Robert for the throne! Rhaegar already had plans to over throw the mad king before he ran off with Lyanna (there are so many clues in the book and tv show, but Rhaegar wanted a peaceful solution to the problem not a war) Also Rhaegar was fighting to protect his family both of them from whatever harm could have come and he failed because it was his death that brought on the sack of kings landing by house Lannister…There’s nothing that would suggest Rhaegar meant for his father to keep the throne Rhaegar himself wanted Aerys to go into retirement which was what he was trying to do at the tourney of harrenhal. He fought for his house but in the end he failed …Also pretty sure she didn’t give a fuck at the time and could distinguish between the man whose child she was having and what he stood for as a person(after all they did spend almost a year together) and his father who at the time was insane.

Regardless of what his personal opinion on the matter was, Rhaegar returning from Dorne to take up arms against the rebels _is_ him fighting in his father’s name. You can’t say that he was not fighting for Aerys when it was Aerys who sat the throne and whom the royalists were fighting in the name of. Rhaegar did not condemn his father’s brutality or try to communicate to the rebels that he saw the murder of over half a dozen nobles as a crime that irrevocably delegitimized the king for he broke the feudal contract their society is built on. He did not move against Aerys with the understanding that his actions were a gross offense that needed to be rectified immediately. Instead he declared for his father and took the field against the rebels which amounts to a very public statement on whose side he was on and who he thought worth defending. His disapproval of Aerys’ actions was only voiced to Jaime Lannister and was immediately belied by his actions - by riding to meet the people injured by his father’s crimes on the field and treating the loss of life that decision resulted in as an acceptable price for keeping the throne. Rhaegar’s personal opinion is _worthless_ in that context; the fact remains that in his capacity as crown prince, Rhaegar took a very clear political stance on the rebellion and followed it with the decisive action of fighting in Aerys’ name. Leading his father’s forces meant that Rhaegar was declaring his position which was that this rebellion deserved to be condemned and fought against, that the rebels were traitors to the crown and that his father’s actions were to be defended. Rhaegar actively supported Aerys on the field, sending a message to the rebels that he unequivocally supported his father’s actions, from executing nobles without a trial to the death sentence for Ned and Robert to his demand of Jon Arryn to break guest right. It’s made worse by the fact that Aerys committed murder over the course of refusing to hold Rhaegar accountable for his own violations so the image they presented to the rebels was that of the king and crown prince breaking every code of conduct and every law in the land to defend each other’s right to do whatever they wanted - a circle jerk that communicated one message: “the law does not apply to House Targaryen. We can do whatever we want to you without any recompense because you don’t have the right to object to our actions. Kick rocks.”

So Rhaegar having a personal opinion that what Aerys did was ill done? It isn’t good enough. It isn’t _enough_ , period. His actions are what matter because they are what represent his dearly held beliefs and his priorities. And Rhaegar’s priority was the throne, even if he stepped on thousands of corpses to ensure he did not lose it. The lives that were lost was little more than collateral damage to him, a necessary evil so that he could keep his royal power. That’s selfish. That’s borderline tyrannical. That’s a man caught up in the illusions of a grand destiny that he lost sight of the people he claimed the right to rule. Saving lives shouldn’t be a worthy cause only when there are ice zombies and dragons involved, and the thousands that died because of Rhaegar’s decisions matter just as much as those currently under siege by the Others.

Another thing that was no way near enough was Rhaegar’s _plans_ to overthrow Aerys. I’m honestly so tired of giving him credit for that since it’s his own inaction that caused everything that happened. Aerys’ sanity had been deteriorating for years, he’d had two noble houses completely eradicated just a few years earlier, he was a pyromaniac that was growing close to the Alchemist’s Guild and Rossart. Rhaegar knew all of that but he failed to take any decisive action to amend any of it. Oh he had plans - plans that he threw away for absolutely no reason when he chose to vanish with Lyanna. Rhaegar squandered his responsibility as crown prince when he watched an unfit king with glaring mental health issues be a menace and danger to the realm for years but did _nothing_.  He knew his father shouldn’t be on the throne, had some plans that we don’t know the extent of but that sound solid enough to be viable, but he failed to act on those plans.... until apparently [half the continent was in open rebellion that happened, in no small part, due to Rhaegar’s own inaction and political ineptitude](http://moonlitgleek.tumblr.com/post/149802152165/inkykate-reblogged-this-post-and-said-i-hate). He was only prepared to do something about it in the same scene he was gearing up to go defend his father’s right to burn people alive. He made it very clear that he was ready and willing to kill a few thousand people for the throne, including the very same people whose families his father brutalized, including the brother of the girl he left pregnant back in Dorne. And say what you will about Robert Baratheon but he’d done nothing to deserve to be killed to satisfy Aerys’ paranoia or to make way for Rhaegar’s kingship. That says a whole lot about Rhaegar and his conceptions of justice, morality and responsibility, whether personal or political. I’m sorry but I’m done giving Rhaegar credit for having plans or opinions that his actions went squarely against, especially when it was him that made the situation even worse and effectively undermined his own plans by his stunt with Lyanna.

> Also Rhaegar was fighting to protect his family both of them from whatever harm could have come and he failed because it was his death that brought on the sack of kings landing by house Lannister.

There is a difference between fighting for his family and fighting for his throne. Rhaegar was the one who put his family in danger with his actions so I’m not at all convinced or moved by the argument that he was fighting to protect his family. For one, Rhaegar did not even think that his family was in danger as his words to Jaime imply. “When the battle’s done I mean to call a council”. _When_ , not if. He did not even entertain the thought of losing and what that could mean to his family. But far more importantly, it was Rhaegar himself who put his family in that awful position, [through his failure to move against Aerys](http://moonlitgleek.tumblr.com/post/154734743465/i-seems-like-a-huge-assumption-to-believe-lyanna), through [his disappearance with Lyanna for months, leaving his mentally unstable father to deal with the fallout and forcing the Starks into a confrontation with Aerys which led to the rebellion](http://moonlitgleek.tumblr.com/post/149802152165/inkykate-reblogged-this-post-and-said-i-hate), through leaving Elia and her children under his father’s thumb. The entire situation was of Rhaegar’s creation; his actions with Lyanna are what made that first domino piece fall. He vanished with Lyanna -> Brandon rode to King’s Landing -> Aerys killed Brandon, Rickard and their companions, sent the order for Robert and Ned’s head and at one point recalled Elia and the children from Dragonstone -> the rebellion happened -> Rhaegar returned to continue the conflict -> Robert was acclaimed -> Rhaegar lost and the sack happened. Take out Rhaegar’s stunt with Lyanna and his family would be sitting on Dragonstone safe and sound and the rebellion doesn’t happen. To make it worse, Rhaegar willfully left Elia and her children vulnerable to his father while he gallivanted to Dorne to impregnate a 15-year-old, he left them again as glorified hostages in the Red Keep knowing what he knew of his father’s paranoia and racism. Let’s not paint him as the sacrificing family man who had no recourse but to go to war. [Rhaegar had options](http://moonlitgleek.tumblr.com/post/154767847170/i-think-rhaegar-is-unjustly-blamed-for-declaring) but [he did not care to follow any of them.](http://moonlitgleek.tumblr.com/post/154854985510/rhaegar-surrendering-for-the-sake-of-justice-is)

> Also pretty sure she didn’t give a fuck at the time and could distinguish between the man whose child she was having and what he stood for as a person(after all they did spend almost a year together) and his father who at the time was insane. 

Didn’t give a fuck about who exactly. About Ned who was in the field to bring justice for their murdered family and to defend his own life since Aerys had a pesky death sentence issued for him? About Robert who she might not have liked but that does not mean she wanted him _dead_ when he’d done nothing wrong? About all the Northmen who rose in the name of her family and to avenge her murdered father and brother? About her friend Howland Reed, about Martyn Cassel and Old Nan’s sons who were probably a part of the Stark household? No, please, do tell me who it is that Lyanna did not give a fuck about, the same Lyanna who stood up for Howland Reed simply because he was her father’s man, [the same Lyanna who loved her family](http://moonlitgleek.tumblr.com/post/167701478020/next-time-someone-tells-me-that-lyanna-was-on), was protective of her people and sensitive to injustice. Are you trying to tell me that Lyanna just simply shrugged when she learned that Rhaegar was going to war against her own brother in the name of the guy who murdered her father and other brother?

Oh but Rhaegar disagreed with Aerys. I’m sure this would have meant the world for the families of those who died because of him. It would have meant everything to Lyanna, Benjen, Catelyn and as-of-yet unborn Robb if Ned had fallen at the Trident. It would have meant everything to Jon Arryn whose nephew was killed in King’s Landing and whose foster sons could have died and _would_ have died in the case of Targaryen victory. Sure, Rhaegar was going to lead an army against the rebels, forcibly subjugate them and dismiss their rights and basic justice, handwave his own complicity in the whole matter while affirming that a king can do whatever he wants to whoever he wants which pushes the realm into absolute monarchy, but for some reason everyone and their cat should _really_ appreciate that he didn’t like what Aerys had done, even when he was upholding and compounding his father’s crimes.


	4. Arguing Rhaegar's responsibility 3

 And what did Rhaegar’s only-known-to-Jaime’s disagreement gain Eddard Stark? Did it grant him justice for his father and brother’s murders? Did it return his sister? Did it make up for Jon Arryn losing his nephew, or the Mallisters losing two of their own? And what would that praised disagreement have gained Benjen and Lyanna and Catelyn and as of yet unborn Robb had Ned fallen during the Battle of the Trident?

The readers know that Rhaegar did not agree with Aerys had done but in-universe, no one knew but Rhaegar’s inner circle. Declaring for Aerys meant supporting his cause; Rhaegar was publicly making a statement declaring his intent to defend his father’s right to break the law and unilaterally execute his vassals without affording them fair trial, which is a huge blow to the rule of the law and to the feudal contract. That move guaranteed that Rhaegar would be painted by the same brush as his father in the eyes of the rebels. It would have necessitated the punishment of the rebel leaders had Rhaegar won on the Trident, which would have been a compounding of Aerys’ earlier crimes since Ned and Robert and Jon Arryn rose out of self-defense and were fighting for a just cause.

What choice did Rhaegar have? He shouldn’t have disappeared with Lyanna Stark, leaving the Starks with no one to answer for their daughter’s apparent abduction but the paranoid and unhinged man famed for exterminating bloodlines for any suspected treason, for starters. He shouldn’t have left three loyal Kingsguard behind, especially Dayne and Whent who were already conspiring with him to overthrow Aerys. He shouldn’t have kept Lyanna under lock and key in Dorne. He should have acted once he was inside King’s Landing, once he was in a position to move against his father without endangering Rhaella, Elia and the kids, and he should have tried to sue for peace. There was no guarantee that it would work, especially since the rebels had no reason to trust Rhaegar but it was worth a shot at least. 

Of course staging a coup at that crucial time could’ve factionalized the royalist army and destabilized Rhaegar’s power base, making him vulnerable to the rebels…. so is it really fair to expect Rhaegar to pretty much fall on his own sword to fix this? Yes, yes, it is fair and it is just. It’s sure as hell more just than killing Robert for Rhaegar’s and Aerys’ sins, more just than sacrificing thousands of lives on the Trident to secure a crown, more just than potentially punishing those who rose to defend their lives and honor and rights. Rhaegar wanted to save the realm, did he not? Well, why the fuck didn’t he try and do it? Or is saving the realm only a worthy cause when a prophecy foretells it, when the lines are crystal clear because the enemy is ice zombies?

It’s not an easy choice. But it’s choices like these that show the true nature of someone. Rhaegar had to choose between a crown and the lives of the people he was meant to rule, and that includes the rebels. He made his choice; he chose the crown.


	5. Arguing Rhaegar's responsibility 4

Who said suing for peace doesn’t give Elia and the kids a chance? Imprisoning Aerys earns Rhaegar brownie points for offering the rebels a semblance of justice, and it also works to distance him from any culpability in his father’s crimes. Which leaves his own absconding with Lyanna but while it’s a huge thing, it’s not enough to continue a war for, especially once Rhaegar guarantees Lyanna’s return, safety and well-being. Sure, Robert would want to off Rhaegar right then and there and burn everything to the ground in revenge, especially once he finds out about the pregnancy and that she left willingly, but the combined efforts of Ned, Jon Arryn and Hoster Tully should be enough to impede that, and Robert alone can’t continue the war if the others won’t play. 

If Rhaegar overthrows his father and asks the rebels to the negotiating table, he forestalls any attempt on his or his family’s lives. The rebels can’t afford to strike against the remaining Targaryens - compromised largely of innocent women and children at this point - during peace negotiations or violate the terms of said peace once it’s set, not if they don’t want to utterly tank the image of the rebellion and the understanding that they rose in defense of the law and social contracts. Moving against Rhaegar or his family under these circumstances paints the rebellion as a simple power grab, losing it its legitimacy and a good deal of support. A peaceful end to the war also prevents any sacking from happening, minimizing the chances of someone slipping during the chaos to strike at the royal family, currently guarded by members of the Kingsguard if not already packed off somewhere else for safety.

Better yet, once Rhaegar wrestles control of King’s Landing from Aerys, he can easily ensure Elia and the children’s safety even _before_ reaching out to the rebels. He can put them on a ship to Dragonstone immediately, just in case the peace negotiations fall through. Hell, put them on a ship to _Dorne_. I’d like to see Robert commit political suicide and bleed whatever support remains to him trying to invade Dorne to kill their princess and her two toddlers. 

> The rebels were fighting to bring down his family which includes Elia and the children. Surrender endangers them 

I’m generally not too moved by the argument that Rhaegar was backed into a corner and just _had_ to fight to save his family for several reasons, the most prominent of which is that the whole situation is of his own creation. The fact that rebellion was against _all_ Targaryens instead of just Aerys is Rhaegar’s own doing so arguments about how Rhaegar had no choice don’t really impress me, not when he was the one who put his family in danger in the first place. He did have a choice, and he chose to humiliate Elia, disappear with Lyanna and create a political crisis that he had all the information required to know would devolve into a disaster. He doesn’t get to claim that he had no choice when his actions are what put his family in that position.

I’m similarly unmoved by arguments for Rhaegar’s concern for Elia and her children. Rhaegar humiliated Elia publicly more than once. He left her and his children to Aerys’ mercy when he disappeared for months, knowing what he knows of his father’s racism and paranoia. And even when he returned to find Aerys keeping his wife as a hostage for Dorne’s loyalty, he took three of the four remaining Kingsguard, including Elia’s own uncle, to battle and left Aerys, Rhaella, Viserys, Elia and his two children under the protection of a seventeen years old boy who he knew was being kept as a hostage himself against Tywin. He left _three_ Kingsguard, including the Lord Commander and the Sword of the Morning, to guard Lyanna but the only adequate protection he leaves for Elia and his two children is Jaime Lannister? Why wasn’t he concerned for Elia and the children when he abandoned them to his father’s whims or when he left them behind to act as hostages? Why does his oh-so-consuming concern only become relevant when it’s needed to put a positive spin on him continuing the war without a care for those who would fall as a result of his own transgressions?


	6. The Kingsguard at the Tower of Joy

Anonymous asked: 

> What was going on in the Tower of Joy. I am so confused by it. Why did Rhaegar leave THREE King's Guard with his baby mama and one teenager with his wife and lawful heir? 

Because it seems that Rhaegar did not take into account the possibility of defeat. 

> Rhaegar had put his hand on Jaime's shoulder. "When this battle's done I mean to call a council. Changes will be made. I meant to do it long ago, but . . . well, it does no good to speak of roads not taken. We shall talk when I return." 

In his mind, he’d have ridden to the Trident to crush the rebellion then returned to call a Great Council and overthrow Aerys. So Elia and the children, inside the Red Keep and surrounded by guards if not Kingsguard, weren’t in danger as far as he was concerned. That, of course, leaves Aerys but Rhaegar was fighting for Aerys and so was Dorne so Aerys had no reason to harm Elia or the children. Their stay in the Red Keep might not be pleasant (or by choice) but Rhaegar probably did not see a pressing danger in it as long as his father saw that Rhaegar was fighting for him. By the time their presence within Aerys’ reach could turn dangerous (when Rhaegar put whatever plans he had into motion), Rhaegar supposedly would have been back and in place to remove Aerys without posing a danger to his family. Of course Rhaegar failed to take into account his father’s unpredictability and the extent of his paranoia into account, and what that could lead him to do. Indeed, Aerys randomly decided that the loss at the Trident was because the Dornish had betrayed them and refused to send Elia and the children to the relative safety of Dragonstone which ultimately left them at the mercy of the Lannister forces, but oh well.

Note that Rhaegar’s belief in the prophecy has to be taken into account here as well because it’s probably what underlay his conviction of victory. He firmly believed that his children were the three heads of the dragon and meant to save the world, so it’s entirely possible that he believed the same magic that foretold the birth of the three heads of the dragon and that would bring the dragons back would ensure the safety and survival of his children, prophesied saviors that they were. That might have played into his firm conviction of his victory, and could explain [how his plans to “protect” Lyanna were equally suspect](http://moonlitgleek.tumblr.com/post/164221401210/im-totally-in-agreement-with-you-about-the-elia), or why he committed so many glaring blunders without a thought to the consequences. If you have prophecy and magic on your side, what could _possibly_ go wrong? 

For a guy so fond of Summerhall, you’d think he would learn something.

> Why, after most of the Royal family was killed because of poor guarding, did they not go to the new King, and pregnant dowager Queen who were actively being percussed? 

Some argue that this is the biggest piece of evidence of Jon’s legitimacy and that the Kingsguard were there to protect their infant king. I disagree, because a [surprise legitimacy reveal would be a deus ex machina that loses Jon’s story a lot of its narrative weight. And because even if Rhaegar took Lyanna for a second wife (probable), that does not mean their marriage was legal or would be recognized by anyone](http://moonlitgleek.tumblr.com/post/152038960755/i-seem-to-have-fallen-down-the-rabbit-hole-of). More importantly, Jon did not have to be trueborn for the Kingsguard to be assigned to protect him.

> Some kings thought it right and proper to dispatch Kingsguard to serve and defend their wives and children, siblings, aunts, uncles, and cousins of greater and lesser degree, and occasionally even their lovers, mistresses, and bastards. 

Of course we then run into one main obstacle: Rhaegar was not king. He never was. But Rhaegar was also not king when he instructed the Kingsguard to stay in Dorne to “guard” Lyanna instead of fulfilling their duty to the king they were sworn to obey

> The first duty of the Kingsguard was to defend the king from harm or threat. The white knights were sworn to obey the king's commands as well, to keep his secrets, counsel him when counsel was requested and keep silent when it was not, serve his pleasure and defend his name and honor. Strictly speaking, it was purely the king's choice whether or not to extend Kingsguard protection to others, even those of royal blood. 

Aerys was facing an active rebellion that the Kingsguard vows compelled them to defend him against but the three Kingsguard eschewed their duty to the king and followed Rhaegar’s orders instead. So, in practice, Arthur Dayne, Oswell Whent and Gerold Hightower had _all but_ treated Rhaegar as de facto king. They sat out the rebellion because Rhaegar told them to remain at the Tower of Joy, so remain they did. That says much about the allegiance of the three of them to Rhaegar’s person, which falls in line with what Yandel tells us about the state of Aerys’ court in recent years and the factionalism that permeated it between those loyal to Aerys and those loyal to Rhaegar. Arthur Dayne was an open supporter of Rhaegar whereas Oswell Whent is speculated to have been involved in whatever scheme was supposed to take place at Harrenhal. Our knowledge of Gerold Hightower is more limited but it says a lot that the Lord Commander didn’t return to fight for the king but stayed behind where Rhaegar instructed him to stay.

So the Kinsguard stayed with Lyanna instead of going to Viserys because  Rhaegar ordered them to, and dead or not, their loyalty to him remained.

(And to be fair, Aerys was murdered by his own guard, while Gregor Clegane scaled Maegor’s Holdfast to get to Elia and Aegon at a time when the city was crawling with an overwhelming number of Lannister soldiers. Those are not good odds for any Targaryen guard.)

> Why, when Ned, Howland, et al, finally came for Lyanna, did they fight. It was her brother and a bunch of Northmen. I assume they had a Stark banner. Yeah, if it had been Robert, I’d have been worried, but it was Ned and his buddies. It wasn’t like an army, it was 9 guys, they could have talked for five minutes. Ned wasn't going to hurt Lyanna or her baby. 

Yeah, that’s one of the reasons many of us question Lyanna’s assent to remain in that tower and just how “willing” her stay was. [According to GRRM:](http://web.archive.org/web/20051103091500/nrctc.edu/fhq/vol1iss3/00103009.htm) 

> The King's Guards don't get to make up their own orders. They serve the king, they protect the king and the royal family, but they're also bound to obey their orders, and if Prince Rhaegar gave them a certain order, they would do that. They can't say, "No we don't like that order, we'll do something else."    

[Which by no means absolve them from the responsibility of choosing to follow Rhaegar’s orders even in defiance of their knightly vows, btw](http://moonlitgleek.tumblr.com/post/157878408740/what-are-your-thoughts-on-king-aeryss-kingsguard). It’s not like their vows render them physically incapable of defying the king. That was still a choice on their part.

But the fact that Ned had to cut his way to Lyanna’s side does not give the best impression of Rhaegar’s orders to the Kingsguard or speak of Lyanna’s wishes being respected or taken into account. It is quite possible that the Kingsguard were not sure of Ned’s intentions: after all, Ned was one of the leaders of the rebellion and the three knights had received the news about what happened with Elia and her children, and who knows how accurate or comprehensive the account was. They might not have known that Ned spoke against the crime or quarreled with Robert over Clegane, Lorch and Tywin escaping punishment - indeed, he left King’s Landing to lift the siege of Storm’s End and accept the surrender of Lords Tyrell and Redwyne so in their eyes he was working for “the Usurper".

However, my issue with this is that they chose to meet Ned sword-to-sword (using their vows to justify it) without even attempting to suss out his intentions, or you know, listening to the sister who knew that her brother would never hurt her or her baby. Lyanna clearly trusted Ned and had faith that he’d help her protect her child so it’s not like the Kingsguard had no grasp on who Ned Stark was or what he was capable of. Even if they did not fully trust Lyanna’s account due to her age, illness or general familial bias, surely escorting Ned to her under guard wouldn’t have cost them anything. Or a conversation that wasn’t centered on how the Kingsguard do not flee and that’s why they were fighting the guy who only wanted to get to his sister and who was literally pushed into war, on the assumption that he might just turn out to be a kinslayer after all. I’d have hoped that three of the finest knights in the land would have enough moral judgement to recognize the position Ned was in, his family murdered and his sister missing for over a year and a half. He was only trying to reach Lyanna (who may have been yelling for him, if that part of his fever dream is correct.) Ned did not want to fight. He was _sad_ about having to fight the Kingsguard but they were giving him no choice to get to Lyanna but to cut his way through. The fact that they were keeping him from his sister and that they were complicit in carrying her off means that the onus was on them to prevent bloodshed. 

That is all to say that the Kingsguard gave more weight to Rhaegar’s orders - which seem to have been “no one gets past. Period” - over the needs and wants of the dying woman inside the tower who, if nothing else, deserved to have her brother by her side when she died and deserved to have the comfort of knowing that her baby was safe with her beloved brother, instead of taking her last breath as another of her brothers was cut down outside her door.

> And what was the plan for them? They didn't know Lyanna was going to die (unless that was the plan), so what where they planning on doing with her and the baby? WTF King’s Guard guys? (you write the best meta so I thought I’d ask if you could help me understand.) 

It would have been clear by the time Ned made it there that Lyanna was dying but I really have no idea what their plans were after that, if they had any. My best guess is that they would have taken Jon and crossed the Narrow Sea to Essos, though their reaction to Ned telling them that Willem Darry did exactly that with Viserys and Daenerys could be a counter-indicative to that. But I don’t know what else they could have done.

(Sometimes I entertain the possibility that Davos’ words about Cortnay Penrose “trying to yield with honor.... [e]ven if it means his own life" apply to these Kingsguard, hence their words about how the Kingsguard do not flee. Not that that would have been any better because killing Ned’s companions to accomplish that does not make them honorable, it only makes them awful. Idk, just a thought I had.) 


	7. On Rhaegar's responsibility for his family's fate

(Follow up to [this](http://moonlitgleek.tumblr.com/post/178324916620/what-do-you-think-about-the-idea-that-the-unnamed))

I was expecting this message. Fandom did not disappoint.

This is a blatantly false equivalence that I’m more than happy to debunk. The Princess of Dorne and Rhaegar do not remotely exist in the same position on the simple basis that Princess of Dorne had absolutely nothing to do with the sequences of events that ended in Elia’s murder. Rhaegar, on the other hand, was not only a proactive party, he was the person who started that sequence of events when he crowned Lyanna Stark as queen of love and beauty at Harrenhal. It’s Rhaegar’s decisions, both in his action and inaction, that spurred the whole tragedy. [He instigated the events and literally created the conflict that put his wife and kids in jeopardy.](http://moonlitgleek.tumblr.com/post/168229685225/honeybubblepop-reblogged-your-post-and-added) That is why Rhaegar is culpable. Elia’s confinement in King’s Landing did not happen in a vacuum. You can not separate it from the events at Harrenhal and how Rhaegar chose to conduct his “affair” with Lyanna. Harrenhal was a turning point in the story not only because it marked the tension in Rhaegar’s relationship with the Starks and Robert Baratheon or because it was the beginning of the Rhaegar/Lyanna narrative. It’s also significant because it had quite a lot to do with ramping up Aerys’ paranoia which probably contributed to his overt reaction to the Starks and to Elia and her children.

Aerys had been long suspicious of Rhaegar by the time of the tourney of Harrenhal but the tourney still marks a significant development in his reaction towards Rhaegar and Tywin, the two parties he suspected of conspiring against him. In one fell swoop, Aerys foiled whatever plans Rhaegar had for the tourney (assuming that the reports about the true purpose of the tourney is correct) and procured a valuable hostage in Jaime Lannister. That makes it clear that Aerys’ suspicions towards Rhaegar had taken a more tangible form if he’d left the Red Keep for the first time in years specifically to block Rhaegar’s plans. And that he’d moved to taking hostages against those he suspected. These are hard facts that Rhaegar should have taken into account when deciding the next step. Instead, Rhaegar inexplicably crowned Lyanna in front of everyone, which was then painted by Aerys’ lackeys as the crown prince trying to win the allegiance of Winterfell as a prelude to Aerys’ own usurpation. For Rhaegar to then vanish with Lyanna was the absolute worst thing to do and certainly more than enough to rile Aerys up after the fiasco at Harrenhal and make his suspicion of his wayward heir skyrocket.

These are not future events that no one could have predicted. This is information that Rhaegar knew and a conflict that _he_ created. With this kind of information, one needn’t be a psychic to understand that leaving Elia and the children vulnerable on Dragonstone when Rhaegar had done his damnest to make Aerys suspicious of him (including taking Arthur freaking Dayne of all people with him . A pro-Rhaegar Dornishman whose sister was Elia’s lady-in-waiting and who had a connection to the Starks that could be traced back to Harrenhal? That would not look suspicious at all in the eyes of a paranoid king.) Rhaegar had every piece of information needed to _at the very damn least_ make him wary of his father’s reaction and careful to put safeguards for Elia and the children. He didn’t. That’s strike one.

Strike two is _far_ more damning. It’s one thing to fail to act on information you have to plan accordingly, and a whole other thing to return to your wife and kids being held hostage by your own father and _do nothing about it_. Rhaegar knew Elia and his children were hostages and he still rode out with almost all of the remaining Kingsguard, including his wife’s uncle, and left them behind with his father. Actually no, let’s go back further because Rhaegar probably knew that Elia and the children were hostages _while still in Dorne_ and still chose to leave three Kingsguard ([whose allegiance clearly belonged to ](http://moonlitgleek.tumblr.com/post/152084140065/what-of-the-kingsguards-presence-at-the-tower-of)_[him](http://moonlitgleek.tumblr.com/post/152084140065/what-of-the-kingsguards-presence-at-the-tower-of)) _behind. And let me preemptively block the argument that Elia was only a hostage after the trident because I’m not impressed with that argument at all. Why the hell would Aerys make Elia go to King’s Landing if not to make a hostage out of her? Elia was not in any danger on Dragonstone. Aerys recalled her to King’s Landing specifically so that he could hold her and the children against Rhaegar (and Doran of course). And if Rhaegar understood that Aerys kept Jaime Lannister by his side as a hostage against Tywin, then he unquestionably knew that Elia and the children were also hostages against _him_. He just chose to do nothing about it. All because [he put so much stock into the prophecy he failed to take the possibility of defeat into account](http://moonlitgleek.tumblr.com/post/168305411365/anonymous-asked-what-was-going-on-in-the-tower). Magic had his back, what could possibly go wrong? 

So no, anon. It’s not ridiculous to hold Rhaegar accountable here. Not only did he fail to act on information that begged him to notice that he was leaving his wife and children in danger, not only did he knowingly leave them as de facto hostages, he is literally the one who created the situation that endangered them in the first place after all the crap he put Elia through and after [he personally guaranteed that her political authority was effectively undermined](http://moonlitgleek.tumblr.com/post/166053604665/riana-one-replied-to-your-post-riana-one). This is one of Rhaegar Targaryen’s most outrageous fails. He does not get to claim innocence when Elia and the children were left vulnerable to his father’s whims as a _direct result_ of his actions. 


End file.
